We're Back!

The boys and I have had a great last two weeks! It started with a last minute visit from my mom (who lives in Guatemala). She was able to come home to help my sister Jeanette with the birth of her fifth child, Evie. Since my she and my dad were going to be coming home for conference anyway, she was given permission to stay home for the month. She came to visit for 2 days to see our new place and play with the boys. The day she was suppose to leave for Utah to meet up with my dad, she decided she wanted the boys and I to come with her. We had already arranged to come for conference, but she wanted us to be there with them longer, so we changed our plans and got on the plane with her that afternoon! It was crazy trying to get everything ready, but we pulled it off and had a great time in Utah and Idaho. We were able to be there for Evie's blessing, and spend time on my sisters 16 acres out in the middle of nowhere Idaho! After we left Idaho, Alex said to me in a very serious voice, "Mom, we need to get some cows and sheep." It was so beautiful and peaceful there- I can see why my sister loves it. We spent the rest of the trip at my parents place in Park City, and we had a great time hanging out with cousins, taking bubble baths in Grandmas tub, visiting BYU campus, jumping on the tramp, watching the leaves change in the mountains, and spending time with Grandma and Grandpa. It was so great to get a taste of fall and put the boys in their fleece outfits! All of my siblings gathered for conference weekend (Alan even came for a short 40 hour visit!) We were all able to be there to support my dad as he spoke in conference. It was-to put it simply- a great experience. We're so glad we were able to be there and spend that time with my family.

Home sweet......Home?

Dunkin D's

Jelly?

Chocolate?

This is the one! Boston Creme.

Munchkin for our munchkin.
my boys

Well one redeeming quality about Arizona is the fact that they have Dunkin Donuts, a very east coast donut store (in my mind, anyway). The unfortunate aspect of the Dunkin's here in Arizona is that it is located in a gas station. But I'll just try to be grateful that they have one. I grew up on these Donuts! Way too many a Friday night was spent doing D&D drive-bys, and I remember Jennifer Humphrey getting up before the sun to do donut runs for us whenever my parents were out of town. As you can tell from the pictures, Alex appreciates them as much as I do!! We bought a half dozen and the kid took a bite of each and every donut, before settling on a Boston Crème.

Ugh.

I can’t even count how many people have complimented me on my transition to Arizona. So many of my friends have been obviously nervous to ask me how I’m doing, and have acted so relieved to hear my response, We’re doing great! We’re getting settled! Life is busy! All is well! Alan has even said I’m being quote BRAVE, which is a big compliment coming from him.
Well, people, the act is OVER. I’m done being strong, I’m finished acting like I’m enjoying it here. The events of yesterday ruined all of the peace and harmony we’ve been enjoying.
Our landlord offers free pest control service for the first 30 days you are in residence, and I had seen probably 2 spiders since moving in, so I called to make an appointment. The time came, the man arrived, and when I asked him about cockroaches (we did just move here from Texas!) he said, Don’t worry, your house isn’t going to have any problems. He then went outside to spray. Thirty minutes later, when he had yet to resurface, I started getting nervous. It turns out that he was on the front porch doing battle not only with hundreds of crickets, but with multiple black widow nests, oh and also?? With a scorpion. A three inch long, still sitting on my porch because I refuse to clean him up scorpion!! Why do people live here? This is not inhabitable land! There are rocks instead of grass! There are dangerous creatures living around your house! Cactus grows wild! It’s over a hundred degrees on a daily basis! There is nothing beautiful about this place!! I just don’t get it. I’m not sure I ever will get it. Ever. Is this really my life?

I may have too much spare time

Life as a mom is super busy. Most days I feel like I am going non-stop all day long. I totally get that being a stay-at-home mom doesn't necessarily sound hard. When you use that term it sound like someone who stays home all day. Most of my friends who are at-home moms aren't just at home, they are running around in their cars all day trying manage a family and home, often with additional responsibilities such as being a relief society president or some such thing. It's true, there perks to being at home full-time, such as being able to schedule appointments while most people are at work, and there is the occasional nap that you can squeeze in when your children are preoccupied with a video or napping themselves, but that is the exception to the daily routine of most moms I know. Usually during naps we are running around the house like crazy, trying to clean the toilets or do the laundry or manage the finances, or figure out something for dinner etc. Today I found myself with too much spare time. It's not that there weren't other things to be done, because I have a looooong list of "to-do's" that are not crossed off, but today it seemed like a good day to make our frozen taquitos (I love living by Trader Joe's again!!) fancier by making some homemade salsa and guacamole to go with them. Who does that in the middle of the day on a Wednesday? Not me, usually. But a stay-at-home mom has that option. Now tomorrow will be busier, and I created a big mess in the kitchen that I now need to clean up, but I loved watching my boys dip their "rollies" (as Alex calls them) into the red and green sauces as they tried something new tonight. As a stay-at-home mom, I get such satisfaction out of that.

Sorting through memories

Tonight I decided to tackle the project of organizing the shoeboxes full of letters, cards, pictures and notes that we have been collecting forever. I've never really come up with a great system of storing our memories, but since we recently moved I thought it was the perfect time to try and create some order in our lives. One of my favorite finds was this letter written to me my senior year of high school by my great friend Anthony Berrios. I had tears streaming down my cheeks from laughing so hard after I read it. He wrote it shortly after arriving at BYU, and I love his description of his experiences there. It brought memories rushing back of the fun that my girls from NC and I had with the "yorktown boys" during our sophomore and junior years of high school. Our lives were definitely better for having known them. I wish I knew where Ant is now.

Family Dinner

Cousin Anne, playing her harp! She's only 8 years old!

Will, out of control as usual.

Papa, with most of the grandkids gathered around the scriptures.

Aunt Sommer and baby Kate, the littlest cousin.

Nana teaching her lesson on kindness.

Tonight we went to a family dinner at Alan's parents house. The plan is to have a dinner/fhe with everyone (since all of Alan's siblings except 1 live within 20 minutes of us) one Sunday per month. It's quite a group: there are 10 adults and nine kids with one more on the way. We had a great dinner and then Alan's mom prepared a lesson on kindness. This is a great quote she gave each of us to take home: "Who can calculate the wounds inflicted, their depth and pain, by harsh and mean words spoken in anger? How pitiful a sight is a man who is strong in many ways but who loses all control of himself when some little thing, usually of no significant consequence disturbs his equanimity. In every marriage, there are occasional differences, but I find no justificiation for tempers that explode on the slightest provocation." -President Hinckley

Peach Pie

Yesterday I found myself in the middle of Mesa Arizona, waiting in a long line outside of someone's garage, where I purchased large boxes of peaches, tomatoes and rasberries that had just arrived that morning on a truck from Utah. The peaches are fantastic and perfectly ripe, and we have way too many. So I made a pie, and even Mr. Picky-eater Alex had a piece. Yum!

A word about strip malls...

I've never been a big fan of the "strip mall." This probably has something to do with growing up in a small town in the northeast where most stores were mom and pop shops, and our Main Street is as quaint as they come. You know, the kind of place where everybody knows your name. Just imagine a Norman Rockwell painting: that's New Canaan. I grew up in a picturesque town, and that's what I like. There is something so mundane, so common, so uninteresting about strip malls. They are all the same: fast-food, a dry-cleaners, walmart, etc. etc. Imagine my dismay when the decision was made for our family to move to none other than strip mall HEAVEN. That's all they have here in Arizona, strip mall after strip mall after strip mall. The first week or so it was physcially painful for me as I drove around from strip mall to strip mall doing my errands. That is until I discovered my local Walmart SUPERCENTER. This is not just any Walmart, no, it is even bigger then a Superwalmart. This place is like a small city inside four walls. Where else on earth can you do all of the following under one roof: buy food for your family, purchase clothing shoes underwear diapers and socks, grab a bite to eat at Subway, mail off packages and letters at the US postal service kiosk, have your hair colored and cut at the salon, have your family photos done, get a manicure, have your car tires rotated and the oil changed, purchase grass for your yard, have your eyes checked and glasses made, and purchase Halloween costumes for the entire family?? And those are only the things I have discovered! I have yet to make it around the entire store. I might be able to get used to Arizona after all.

FHE at the temple

There was a rainbow at the temple while we were walking around the grounds.The Mesa Arizona Temple

We had a great family home evening tonight at the Mesa Arizona temple. Alan hadn't seen the new movie made by our church: Joseph Smith, Prophet of the Restoration, so we took the kids and spent the evening at the visitors center on the grounds of the temple (this was after a fun barbeque with Alan's brother where we ate- Get ready now- DOVE, as in the bird, that Ryan and Alan hunted for and shot this morning. But that's a whole other story that I don't want to get into.) What an amazing job the film does of capturing glimpses of the prophets life. Alan and I were talking about what struck us the most about the movie. Alan thought it represented the personal sacrifice that Joseph gave more clearly then stories and films in the past have done. I was surprised at the way the film portrayed Joseph and Emma's relationship. Beginning at their courtship and her parent's disapproval of their union, all the way to when Emma watched as Joseph rode off to Carthidge jail, there was so much pain and tragedy laced with bits of humor and happy moments together. She was his rock, and he hers. It seems that Emma's role is often glanced over or entirely forgotten. Her sacrifices were so great. I don't know how she carried on after experiencing so much fear and loss. At the end of the film, the phrase "Shall we not go on for so great a cause?" comes up on the screen. I suppose that's how she went on- for her cause, their cause.
We finished up the night at Maggie Moo's. I love the expression on Alex's face- now that we live in Arizona he is constantly telling me how cold he is, because everywhere we go the a/c is on full blast. He was shivering after his cotton candy ice cream!

BYU vs. UofA

Front row seats at the game!

Here's Alex fraternizing with the enemy. I guess a three-year-old can't grasp the idea
that this fuzzy cat is not someone we want to be nice to.

We had a great weekend with Nate and Carla. Saturday night was the game, where Nate somehow managed to score us front row seats! It was perfect because the boys had plenty of room to play at our feet. Before the game we grabbed dinner at the best Mexican in Tucscon: El Churro. We were having a great night until BYU lost in the last 15 seconds. It was still fun though. We just put Nate and Carla on the plane back to BYU- now it's back to life as usual.

Nate and Carla have arrived!

We're so happy to have Nate and Carla with us for a couple of days! They arrived last night and we had a great time barbequing and swimming. After swimming we were getting the boys dressed when Alex randomly shouted out, "I love Carla!" I think he may have his first crush. We're headed to Tucson tonight for the UofA vs. BYU game.

It's a little early but...

My friend Jen called from Texas to let me know she had just purchased her little girls Halloween costume at Babystyle (I know it's August, she knows it’s August, we ALL know it's entirely too early to be thinking about Halloween!!) Well I was in Scottsdale yesterday for a Crate and Barrel run, and I walked right by the Babystyle at the mall. The boys and I headed in, and look what we found!! When I showed Alan the costume last night, he wasn't so sure, since being a chick doesn't exactly fit Will's personality. Alan thought he should be a monkey or a wild boar. But that's what I love so much about the costume!! Will looks so sweet and innocent (ok, and ridiculous) which he is NOT! That's what makes it the perfect costume.

Cousins

Alex is having a great time getting to know all of his cousins that live in Arizona. There are 7 cousins that live within 15 minutes of us, and 3 more that are only an hour and a half away. He has begun to totally idolize a few of them, and asks if he can have a "playdate with his cousin today." Most of them are older and in school all day, but we've been able to spend some time with each of them, and Alex always has a great time!

Big Blue Eyes

Saturday Projects

Growing up we always had Saturday projects. My parents would wake us long before we would have liked with some kind of home improvement task in mind. I'll never forget being sung to by my dad (in an awful voice, I might add) or my mom's favorite get-the-kids-out-of-bed technique: blaring her favorite music, which usually consisted of Bette Midler or Celine Dion or Kenny Rogers (all of which I can appreciate much more now then I did then!) It used to drive me crazy, and I could never understand why my parents wanted to torture me before 9 am each and every Saturday. Now that I'm a parent, I totally get it! Saturday morning is a time to GET THINGS DONE. Things that you never have the time or mental concentration to accomplish during the week, because of the distractions of lifes commitments and managing a family. But on Saturday mornings, everyone is home, there is little going on, and it's the perfect time to accomplish a task like going through 8 years worth of files full of cable bills and birthday cards. So after the task of organizing was complete, the shredding began! I'm so glad we have a few years before we will be playing the role of awful parents torturing their teenagers. That doesn't mean that we haven't faced resistance from the troops on our projects! This morning Alex and I had the following conversation:
Alex: "Hi mommy, what are you doing?"
Me: "I'm going to work on a project. Want to help?"
Alex: "No thanks. I'm going to play in my room. But have a great time!"
Those are direct quotes. I can only imagine the resistance I will face in a few years.

Time with Nana

Here's what's great about living by family: when you have a house full of stuff that really needs to be unpacked because you have just moved hundreds of miles away from your home and you just can't seem to get it done because you have a 3-year-old and an extremely high maintenance 16-month-old who require the attention of both adults who are working on said project and you are just about to give up, your phone might ring and someone from the family that now lives near by offers to take your boys for a few hours, you can say, I will bring them over. And you can know that the person taking care of them loves them and wants to spend time with them. It's an incredible feeling, and not at all overrated.

He's BACK!

This fascinating photo is of Alan.... juggling. He spent a few minutes today cleaning out his old closet at his parent’s home and came across his old juggling pins (is that what they are called?? Who knows.) Anyway, I had to post this because Alan made such a great comment yesterday after making himself laugh at one of his own jokes. I heard him mutter, under his breath and to no one in particular, "I'm starting to like myself again." I smiled and had to agree that we are all starting to like Alan again. (***Disclaimer- it's not that we didn't LOVE him, it's just that, well, he hasn’t been the easy-going-happy-calm-go-with-the-flow Alan that we all used to know and love and completely ENJOY being around. Regardless, it's so wonderful to be catching glimpses of that pre-dental school and residency Alan.) WELCOME BACK, hon.

First Day of School!

Alex had his first day of preschool today at the Ladybug Learning Club. He was so excited to go spend the day with Mrs. Anderson. I can not tell you how pleased I was when reading Mrs. Andersons bio to find out that she believes her calling in life is to be a preschool teacher! How great is that? I feel really lucky to have her be the teacher that Alex will have his first school experience with. I can't believe he is old enough to be going. When I dropped him off in his classroom, he didn't even look back.

BLT's for FHE

Tonight we had our first FHE in our new house. Alan and I have set some new goals now that we are in "post-student" life, one of them being regular family home evening on Monday nights, which had not been a regular occurrence in our home with Alan's schedule. It was so fun to spend the evening together. We had a great talk all about being a child of God. Alex has a big day tomorrow- his first official day of preschool- and the theme for the day will be "getting to know you." We wanted to make sure that Alex knows the most important thing about himself- that he is a child of God. We also had to fill a bag for him to take with him to school tomorrow with 5 things that are important to him or tell something about him. Here are the five items that made it into the bag: a baseball, a mini Texas flag, a picture of Will, the label off of the package of bacon from our BLT's (he ate about a 1/2 lb. himself- he loves bacon!), and of course, Thomas-the-tank-engine.
On another note, we seem to be getting busier and busier by the day here in Arizona. We started today by sleeping through our first day of our new playgroup, after which we rushed around to get ready for preschool orientation this morning, and then this afternoon Alex had Sports Class at Little Gym. I'm missing our lazy summer mornings in Texas where we stay in our pajamas until 11 am when we would then get in the pool in backyard. No driving, no shuttling around, no unpacking and organizing to do-just relaxing and maybe having friends over to play. What good memories. Tomorrow it's off to preschool by 8:30, visit from the relief society at 10am, unpack and organize until preschool pickup and cousin playdate at 12pm. And the move-in to-do lists just keep growing!!

Moving In

We are officially spending our first night in our new house in Arizona! Everything is a disaster as you can see, but the boys are in bed and we have a great air conditioning system, so life could not be better right now. There is so much more room in this house then we had in Texas, it feels enormous to our small family (and it's not even 2000 sqare feet!) It feels great to be in our own place surrounded by our own things. Tomorrow, the work begins of sorting through it all! We'll post after pictures when it's all done.

Alex wanted braces so...

Nana got him some of his very own! He has been very jealous of mine ever since I got them on a couple of months ago! It's actually very entertaining to see how much both of the boys already pay attention to teeth in general.

Alan's FINAL Graduation!!

Alan giving his graduation speech!

Alan surrounded by his adoring Baylor assistants. It was hard to say goodbye to such great coworkers.

Dave and Julie Curtis, us, Mary Anne and Don Clarke.

It was great to have our parents there to show their support.

Celebrating with the boys (who were suppose to be sleeping!) and chocolate ecstasy cake (our Texas favorite) after graduation. Don't you love the Texas flags they are waving on their last night as Texans?

It was a long awaited night and both Alan and I were in disbelief that it was actually occurring. It felt very surreal, but very rewarding at the same time. I am so proud of Alan for accomplishing this goal. I've never known a harder worker. All night long the professors, staff members, full and part time faculty at Baylor kept coming up to Alan and telling him what a great orthodontist he would be. Several of them told me that he was the best they have seen come out of the program in a long time. I felt so proud and it (sort of=)) made all of the long lonely week and weekends and endless study and clinic sessions worth it. I'm so happy for him and all that he has accomplished!

My best day of parenting so far

This evening, while Alan and I were rushing around trying to get ready for an evening out with my parents, we left Will momentarily unsupervised in the kitchen. From the bathroom, we heard this screeching noise and both went running towards it. There hung will, having climbed out of his high chair, I guess too impatient to wait for us get him out in the normal fashion. The best part is that we made him hang there until we would snap these pictures! This is such typical Will behavior that neither of us was all that shocked or concerned. What a crazy kid!

Farewel Luncheon

We just got home from the farewell luncheon our friends threw for the boys and I. We all gathered for lunch at Le Madeline. It was such a great time, and the perfect way to say goodbye to so many amazing friends that we will never forget! My friend Lara made the darling book. She and Jen gathered memory messages from our friends and bound them all with pictures from the last 2 years! The picture does not do it justice. I couldn’t even read it while we were at the lunch, because I would have lost it! We had a great time and will miss our Texas friends so very much. We felt so loved and we hope they all know how much we love them as well. More pictures to follow.

My parents arrive tonight, Alan defends on Thursday, graduation is Friday.... it’s all happening so fast!

Cute pics of Will!

My new best friend, and Alex's too.

So as I have said before, Alan has not been around- at all. You would think that I would be desperately lonely and miserable and exhausted without any help with the boys. I assure, you I am not! Miss Desiera Green from our ward, one of the young women that I have been lucky enough to get to know during my time here in Dallas, has joined the family and we are functioning just great! She has been helping me with grocery store trips, playdates at the pool, trips to the mall, pool time in the backyard- she even watched the boys so I could go see a movie with my girlfriends this week! Alan asked me this morning if we could adopt her and take her to Arizona with us. She has been a total lifesaver and I'm not sure how we will function without her! Desi- your welcome in Arizona anytime!

My husband is obssesed with Cuba

Things are stressful over here. Alan just got back from a weekend trip to Arizona where he tried to find us a house (did I mention we are moving in less than 2 weeks?!) The part of this that is stressful is that we still don’t have a house lined up. Now he is back in Texas and it’s back to “the writing of the thesis,” which generally means that we will see him a week from Friday, when he graduates, and not at all before. After we picked him up from the airport yesterday, Alex was so excited to see him he could hardly contain himself. On the drive home, Alan would try to say something to me and we would be loudly interrupted by a high-pitched voice from the backseat that would screech “EXCUSE me DADDY, I need to tell you something!!” When we got home and Alan grabbed his bag to head to the clinic, there was even louder protesting that included some yelling, kicking and tears, all of which were resolved after some candy and a Thomas video. We are in survival mode, doing whatever it takes to get through the day.
Why, you ask, is the title of this entry My husband is obsessed with Cuba? Because this morning at 6:45am I was greeted by Alan (who arrived home at 3:13am last night), and this was his good morning comment, “Christie, there is hope for our future! Fidel Castro resigned his power last night!” (As a side note, Alan has a dream of living in Cuba…. I have no further explanation as to WHY this is a dream of his). I can not imagine how he has room in his brain for anything more than what we already have going on: thesis, house hunting, starting a business, potty-training, packing, leaving all of our friends, moving to the DESERT, etc.(granted, Alan is probably only worried about one of those things: thesis). I guess I can chalk this up to the difference between men and women. Oh, and I think I will follow Alan’s lead and listen to the news today. It seems like a great way for me to get outside of my own small life and think about something with greater impact (also- I could use a break from the constant potty-talk around here- our celebration yesterday over Alex #2 in the toilet was way over the top).